Loading-machine



N. L. BARGER AND J. P. DONALDSON.

LOADING MACHINE.

APPLICATION FILED JAN. 3, I918. Patented June 24 2 SHEETS-SHEET l.

gwuemloz CZ Z Donaldovn N. L. BARGER AND J. P. DONALDSON.

LOADING MACHINE.

APPLICATION mu) JAN. 3 I913 Patented J 11116 24, 1919.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

allozunr NEWTON L. BADGER m ILA-HEB P.

PATENT OFFICE.

DONALDSOH, 0F TDALE, Wm VIRGINIA.

LOADINGMAOHIH'E.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented June 24, 1919.

Application filed January 8, 1818. Serial No. 210,188.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, NEWTON L. Banana and JAMES P. DONALDSON, citizens of the United States, residing at Amherstdale, in the county of Logan, State of West Virginia, have invented certain new and useful mprovements in Loading-Machines; and we do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

This invention relates to mining machinery and has particular reference to machines for gathering and loading coal in coal mines.

The object of the invention is to provide a machine for practically and rapidly removing coal from a chamber after a mass Heretofore, for cutting has been shot. and loading a quantity of coal, it has been the lumps and necessar to manually break shovel t cm into mine cars for removal to the hoisting shaft. By means of my invention, this coal is gathered, and is partly disintegrated in the gathering process, and after being thrown upon a conveyer, is hoisted by the latter into a suitable position for dumping into mine cars.

In carrying out the above invention, we have employed a supporting and o crating mechanism which 1s practically identical with that of a usual form of short wall cuttin machine for undercutting the coal and utilizing the same sort of mechanism for pro essin the machine into the pile of bro en coa as is employed for moving the cuttin machine.

Wit the above objects in view, and such others relating to the details of construction, as may hereinafter appear, our invention' will now be fully set forth and described, reference being bad to the accompanying drawings.

In the drawingis:

Figure 1 is a p an view of the machine,

Fig. 2 is a side elevation,

Fig. 3 is a longitudinal section therethrough,

Fig. 4 is a view of the power plant, Fig. 5 is a detail perspective view of the conveyor belt,

Fig. 6 is a section on line 6-4 of Fig. 1,

Fig. 7 is a further sectional detail view of the conveyor mechanism, and

Fi 8 is a section on line 8-8 of 1.

Re erring more particaularly to the rawings, 1 represents the base or frame machine, upon whose rear end is raised the casing or housing 2 within which the driving mechanism of the machine is carried. In all of its essential particulars the motive power which 2 is the same as that'which is used upon an undercutting mining machine, and the prog ress and operation of the machine Wlll be controlled in like manner. Thus, the machine will be provided with the usual systen'i of drums and cables which, with the cooperation of jacks will be manipulated to cause the machine to progress forwardly or sidewise through the coal pile. Since this mechanism forms no part of the present invention, it is not shown, since its disclosure on the drawings would merely confuse the present invention.

The loading mechanism of this invention, consists, essentially, of an elevating conveyer 3, a forward gathering roller 4, a set of side gathering rollers 5 and an intermediate roller 6, the rollers 4, 5, and 6 coiiperating to take the coal from the pile and deposit it on the conveyor by means of which it will be carried to the mine cars for transportation.

The conveyor 3 is formed of one continuous flexible belt having the side chains 7 which operate over sprockets 8 carried by shafts 9. Said shafts 9 which have their bearings in the sides 10 of the framework, divide the belt 3 into three flights, a horizontal flight a, an intermediate flight b and a delivery flight c. The flight a is horizontal, and receives the coal which, is delivered by the rollers 4, 5 and 6, whence it is carried onto the flight b and finally is delivered from the flight a, the buckets 11 which are carried by the belt 3 insuring the continuous progrose of the coal with the belt.

The rollers 4, 5 and 6 inclose one side and the free end of the flight a and the opposite side of the Hi ht is inclosed by a comparatively high si eboard or. guard plate 12 which continues the sideboar 10 upon the corresponding side. The roller 4 is mounted upon a shaft 13 extending across the front end of the frame strum, and carries pon is housed within the casing its periphery a number of s iral series of cutter blades or teeth 14. he blades or teeth 14 serve to lift the coal, and exert a partial disintegrating action upon the larger lumps, where the latter prove too heavy to be conveniently manipulated by the roller. Also, the spirally arranged teeth are so mounted that the coal which is carried over the roller 4 is thrown toward the guard plate 12 so that its tendency is to hug the latter as the belt 3 progresses toward the upper flights. The roller 5 extends practically throughout the length of the Hi ht a, and carries an axial shaft 15 WlllCl is fixed within the heads of the roller, the latter being preferably formed as a hollow metal drum. Formed in the periphery of the drum at suitable intervals is a plurality of bearing grooves 16 within. which are received the bearing rings 17 which form part of brackets 18 extended from the side of the main frame structure. Preferably, ball bearings 19 are interposed between the rings 17 and the grooves 16 in order to avoid as: far as possible the bearing frictions. The roller 5 also has the series of spirally arranged teeth 14, which attack the coal pile so as to carry the coal onto the conveyor belt 3 and then to move it toward the forward end of the flight a in accordance with the progress of the conveyer. At the outer end of the drum 5 the shaft 1*5 is extended a distance which approximates the diameter of the roller 4, and upon the extended end of the shaft there is mounted the short roller 6 which is also provided with the spiral series of teeth 14, so that the coal which backs up is thrown over its periphery and toward the angle between the rollers 4 and 5 and also upon the roller 4. Between the rollers 5 and 6 there is mounted in any suit able manner the spur gear 20 which meshes loosely with a second spur gear 21 mounted upon the end of the shaft 13 of the roller 4, the shaft of the roller 5 thereby driving both the drums 4 and 6.

The oppositeen'd of the shaft 15 is provided with a bevel gear 22 which, in turn, stands is mesh with a bevel gear 23 carried upon a vertical stub shaft 24. The vertical shaft 24 is mounted in a bearing bracket 25 extended from the side of the main frame, and also carries the sprocket over which a sprocket chain 26 operates. The opposite end of the s rocket chain then passes over a sprocket w eel 27 which is mounted upon a stub shaft 28 within the housing 2, the latter, in turn, through the bevel gears 29 and 30 being geared to the power shaft of the motor 31. In this manner, the motive power for the rollers 4, 5 and 6 is furnished through a single driving element.

As a means to aid the conveyor belt 3, in its several flights, to sup ort the load upon its upper run, we place t e supporting plates 32 between the runs at the difl'erent flights, the plates 32 being carried by the side elements of the frame structure, and extending practically throughout the length of the several flights. The frame elements which support the flight 0 form a unit aside from the main frame structure, to which the unit is hinged on the axis of the shaft 9 between the flights b and 0, and the delivery end of the adjustable flight c is supported by means of a jack 33 of ordinary construction which is interposed between the lower side of the movable unit and the base 1. In order to hold the lower run of the belt 3 into the obtuse angle between the flights b and c, we place the guard plates 34' which overlie the edges of the belt and the chains 7 upon which the belt is mounted. At the delivery end of the flight c. we place a chute which will break the fall of the coal from the end of the flight and aid. in delivering the coal into the mine cars. The belt 3 is driven from a worm 30 which is mounted upon the shaft 37 of the motor 31, said shaft 37 extending through the forward end of the casing 2, and carrying upon its extended end the worm 3G. Meshing with the Worm 3G is a worm gear 38 mounted upon a counter-shaft 39 extending across the frame structure. The counter-shaft 39 also carries a sprocket wheel 40 upon its outer end upon whichasprocket chain 41 operates. The sprocket chain 41 also passes over a sprocket 42 carried upon the end of the shaft 9 between the flights b and c, the necessary power for the operation of the belt 3 being in this manner communicated from the motor 31.

In the operation of the above described machine, it is mounted in a gallery or cham her, after a mass of coal has been shot, in the same relation to the pile of coal that the cutting machine had for undercutting the face from which the pile was shot. Also, as heretofore stated, the machine is anchored to jacks by means of cables whose opposite ends are wound upon the machine frame, in the same manner in which a cutting machine is installed, for progressing it with relation to the face. Then, the operating mechanism is started to drive the rollers 4, 5 and 6 and to drive the conveyer belt 3. The action of the rollers 4, 5 and 6 is to lift the coal from the pile against which the machine is driven, either longitudinally or transversely, and deposit it upon the lower end of the conveyor belt 3. If the coal is not sulficiently broken, the teeth upon the rollers suificiently disintegrate the coal as the rollers operate thereagainst, to size the coal for liftin onto the belt. It will be noted that the re ers throw the coal longitudinally of the belt and also toward the guard plate opposite the roller 5, so that a pro r pIOgTBSSlOIl of the coal after it has struc upon the conveyor 8 is insured. The conveyer belt 3 carries the coal to the upper end of the movable flight, and chutes into the coal cars in an obvious manner.

An important feature of the invention lies in the particular arrangement of the rollers 6 and 4 with respect to each other. It will be noted that, since the IOller (3 extends across the end of the roller 4 and is mounted to rotate upwardly and inwardly toward the roller 4, coal contacted by the roller 6 and by its teeth will be carried by v the roller 6 not only into the angle between the rollers a and 5, but also onto the roller 4 as well, from which roller the coal is thrown upon the conveyor and also urged toward the guard plate 12. Thus, not only is there provision for action upon a greater quantity of coal, through the added area of coal engaging surface represented by the roller 6, but this roller 6 also prevents the passage of lum s of coal into engagement with the end of tie roller 4, which might interfere with the operation of this roller.

It will be apparent from the foregoing description that there has been provided a very practical machine for taking coal in the form in which it is left after a shooting and placing it directly into the mine cars, without the, necessity of employing manual labor, in accordance with the method which has been heretofore in use.

After a vein has been undercut and shot, the cutting machine may be employed in another gallery or chamber, and the loading machine may be substituted therefor, to transfer the coal which has been brought down into cars.

While we have shown and described a preferred embodiment of our invention, it will be understood that various changes and modifications of the structure may be resorted to for differing condition of use without departing in any manner from the scope of the appended claims. While we have shown no specific mounting for the inner end of the roller 4, such mounting may take the form of a ball bearing such as shown in connection with the roller 5.

What we claim as our invention is 1. A loading machine, comprising in combination, a framework, a conveyer mechanism mounted upon the framework in elevating flights, and aseries of rollers mounted around the receiving end of the conveyer mechanism to deliver material from a pile against which said rollers are brought onto said com eyer, one of said rollers extending across an end of another of said rollers an being arranged to rotate upwardly and inwardly toward said other roller.

2. A leading machine, comprising in combination, a framework, a conveyor mechanism arranged upon the framework in elevating flights, rollers arranged around the forward and one side edge of the receiving end of the conveyor mechanism, a guar plate extending along the other side edge, and means upon the rollers for directing material lifted by the latter onto the conveyer toward said guard plate.

3. A leading machine, comprising in combination, a framework, a conveyor mechanism arranged upon the framework in elevating flights, rollers arranged around the forward and one side edge of the receiving end of the conveyer mechanism, a guar plate extending along the other side edge, and spiral series of teeth arranged around the rollers so as to direct the material lifted by the rollers toward said guard late and in the direction of operation of t e conveyor mechanism.

In testimony whereof, we aifix our signatures in the presence of two witnesses.

NEWTON L. BARGER. JAMES P. DONALDSON. Witnesses:

Jenn Harns mn, Jr., Asl-mn M. JOHNSON. 

